Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell. Photo / Getty Images
Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell. Photo / Getty Images
The sex-trafficking conviction of Ghislaine Maxwell, late financier Jeffrey Epstein's "right hand" and associate, was long overdue, representatives for the pair's victims have said.
After a two-and-a-half-week trial in a Manhattan federal courthouse, the British socialite was found guilty of recruiting and grooming young girls to be sexually abused by the convicted paedophile, who died by suicide while awaiting his own trial in 2019.
Maxwell was convicted on five of six charges by a 12-person jury, and could potentially spend the rest of her life behind bars.
Lawyer David Boies, who represents about a dozen of the women who allege they were abused by the pair, called it "a great day for all of the Epstein and Maxwell survivors".
"This is a verdict that is a victory for those survivors. They deserve the credit. The vindication is theirs," Boise said.
"The survivors had to survive not only the initial sexual abuse, but the abuse in the media that Epstein and Maxwell subjected them to. This was a long time coming."
British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell has been found guilty of sex crimes, including sex trafficking a minor. Photo / Getty Images
Lisa Bloom, who represents eight of Epstein's alleged victims, also said she was elated by the verdict.
"My clients and I were moved to tears that this day has finally come," Bloom told the New York Post.
"She got to walk free on this earth for 60 years. May she never walk free again."
Reacting to the news, Virginia Giuffre, possibly Epstein's most well-known victim (her name was mentioned almost 250 times during Maxwell's trial), told The Cut that Maxwell is "more evil than Epstein".
"What Ghislaine did to so many of us is unforgivable," Giuffre, who lives in Perth with her husband and children, added.
My soul yearned for justice for years and today the jury gave me just that. I will remember this day always.
Having lived with the horrors of Maxwell’s abuse, my heart goes out to the many other girls and young women who suffered at her hands and whose lives she destroyed. 1/2
"I have been dreaming of this day for the last 10 years, not knowing that it was going to come … I am grateful they saw Maxwell for who she is.
"It's a bittersweet emotion because I have been fighting for so long. It's definitely not over. There are so many more people involved with this. It doesn't stop with Maxwell. But it's definitely a relief to know that she's off the streets. And that no matter how rich or how connected you are, that you can still be held accountable."
Giuffre added that "Epstein and Maxwell took a part of my childhood that I'll never get back".
"She was the devil's right-hand man. She made these appointments for him, she actively went out there and scouted for new girls. She was part of the sexual encounters at times. To paint herself as just the 'house manager' is a load of crock," she said of Maxwell.
In a statement issued after the verdict, US attorney for Manhattan, Damian Williams, described Maxwell's crimes as "one of the worst … imaginable – facilitating and participating in the sexual abuse of children".
"The road to justice has been far too long. But, today, justice has been done. I want to commend the bravery of the girls – now grown women – who stepped out of the shadows and into the courtroom," he added.
"Their courage and willingness to face their abuser made this case, and today's result, possible."
Conspiracy to commit sex trafficking of minors carries a maximum 40-year sentence. The lesser charges have terms of five or 10 years.
The 60-year-old – who reportedly showed no emotion as she was hauled from the courtroom – now faces a second trial on two perjury charges. No date has been set for her sentencing.
The charges against Maxwell stemmed from 1994 to 2004, with two of Epstein's alleged victims testifying they were as young as 14 when Maxwell allegedly began grooming them and arranging for them to give massages to Epstein that ended in sexual activity.
In most cases, prosecutors said, the pair preyed on vulnerable girls from single-parent homes.
"Selecting these girls was predatory behaviour. Maxwell and Epstein picked vulnerable girls," prosecutor Alison Moe said in her closing statement.
Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell. Photo / Getty Images
At the same time as the pair were luring these girls away from their families to sexually abuse them, they were rubbing shoulders with the rich and elite.
Witnesses recalled seeing photographs at Epstein's Florida mansion that showed the financier with leaders ranging from Fidel Castro to Pope John Paul II. Epstein also had entertained former US presidents Bill Clinton and Donald Trump, and Maxwell's friend, Britain's Prince Andrew.
It was precisely because of these connections that Epstein and Maxwell felt they could get away with their crimes for so long, prosecutors said.
That all changed with Maxwell's 2020 arrest and at her trial – as four of her accusers, now grown women, pointed her out to the jury as the woman who facilitated their sexual abuse.
"The defendant never thought that those teenage girls would have the strength to report what happened to them. In her eyes, they were just trash, beneath her," Assistant US Attorney Maurene Comey told jurors in her rebuttal statement at the close of the trial.
"Who would believe Jane or Kate or Carolyn or Annie over Ghislaine Maxwell and Jeffrey Epstein, who rubbed shoulders with presidents and celebrities and business leaders?
"But the defendant didn't count on those teenage girls growing up into the women who testified at this trial; women who would be willing to take that stand and tell the truth about what happened."
